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Monday, September 24, 2007

Ban Ki Moon, Nine Months in office, still ambiguous

Below is the Portuguese of my article in Folho, Sao Brazil this Sunday 23 September. Readers can choose which version to go to.

Ban Ki Moon, nine months in office, still ambiguous

The 62nd General Assembly opens, as always, with the Brazilian representative making the first speech in the General Debate, after Ban Ki Moon has made his own inaugural opening speech as Secretary General to the General Assembly.

Nine months gestation in office, and Ban is still something of an enigma. Personally affable and approachable, officially it is still difficult to pin him down on positions. While he professes the highest regard for lofty principles of international law and humanitarianism, he consummately avoids being pinned down on specifics. He still prides himself on the title the Korean press corps gave him -"the slippery eel."

One of the reasons for this is that his role as the world's conscience contradicts the other role that has accreted to the office, which is to be the global Arch-Envoy. A Secretary General has to epitomize the UN's global conscience, but to get immediate results he must sometimes shake the bloodstained hands of politicians who are breaking international law.

For example, it is now becoming apparent how much personal effort he has put into resolution of the Sudan and Darfur problems, but for many months, only the most sharp-eared observers in UN headquarters knew how much effort he was putting into this, with incessant calls to the President of Sudan, Omar Al-Bashir.

However, that it came to public notice at all was at least in part because he had finally expanded his staff from the small hard-core Korean dominated team that he brought with him. In effect, they had bought the John-Bolton angled American agenda that saw the previous administration of Kofi Annan as corrupt and inefficient. They thought that they really had little to learn from the existing office-holders, many of whom were cleared out.

That lack of institutional and global experience often shows, and not just on the Middle East. South Korea, where Ban was foreign minister, sees the world from the bottom of a well, whose walls are China, Russia, Japan, North Korea and America. One can forgive them for not having studied the rest of the world as much as they should, and indeed for taking for granted an American version of what is happening.

By now, they may be learning that factions in Washington will always attack the United Nations, no matter who the Secretary General is. Many Non-Aligned representatives regarded Boutros Ghali and Kofi Annan as being overly accommodating to the US to the point of being tools of Washington but that bought them no protection in Washington as soon as they disagreed with American policies.

Nor did their appointment of American nominees to high office protect the UN from attacks from Congress and the American media. So there was apprehension when Ban appointed an American diplomat, B. Lynn Pascoe as Under-Secretary General for Political Affairs, which tended to confirm Non-Aligned suspicions that from now on there would be no difference between American and UN Secretariat positions.

Ironically, however, Pascoe has actually moderated the Korean impulses to follow Washington's positions on matters like the Middle East, which is an issue will almost inevitably lead to conflict between the US administration and any Secretary General who upholds UN positions.

Boutros Ghali and Annan worked hard to bring Israeli and American Jewish support behind the organization, but tempered that with an awareness that there were UN resolutions and principles that applied. Initially Ban's team were totally unbalanced in their approach, as charged by the retiring Middle East envoy, Alvaro de Soto, whose leaked report showed how far UN practice was straying from its principles.

http://image.guardian.co.uk/sysfiles/Guardian/documents/2007/06/12/DeSotoReport.pdf De Soto complained about the "unprecedented access" Israel had to the Secretary General's office, which went as far as helping choose officials as well as determining positions on the Palestine conflict. For example when Ban went to Israel and the Occupied Territories, the pro-Israeli faction fought successfully to stop him going to Gaza where he would have seen the full horror of life for ordinary Palestinians.

There are some signs of change. After six months of statements that implicitly took a pro-Israeli position, the pressure of reality led this summer to him cautioning the Israelis about using tanks in built up areas. It was a small but significant step to a more measured position, but Arab ambassadors and indeed many Non-Aligned are watching him very critically.

In that context, his success in getting the attention of Khartoum, and harnessing the neighouring states, notably Libya, is notable. But his triumph in getting Bashir to accept a UN force can still backfire. In effect, the UN is now accepting responsibility and blame for what is essentially the failure of the great powers. Ironically, China's wish not to have boycotts and protests rain on its Olympics next year probably had more to do with Sudan's agreement than traditional diplomacy. Sadly, Al-Bashir shows every sign of learning from the Slobodan Milosevic school of statesmanship, taking the occasional one step backwards to defuse pressure and then moving two steps forward as soon as pressure is relaxed.

Reassuringly, insiders suggest that Ban Ki Moon is in a wait and see mode with the Sudanese, rather than naivety. With the reported air attacks this week, perhaps that is just as well. But in every sense, we are unlikely to see him raising the temperature of a debate. He is dampens fires, not fans them

2 comments:

Well his point combining militant Zionism and Orthodox practice seems somewhat contradictory. Zionism is branch of romantic nationalism which involves creating a nation to match a metaphysical idea. It has usually been disastrous where it has been tried and more to the point is surely heretical in its preemption of the arrival of the Messiah. Certainly that is what most Haredim considered until recently when it became politically expedient.

More columns than the Parthenon

Born in Liverpool, now resident in New York, "Tequila," "UNtold" "Deserter," "Alms Trade" and "Rum" author Ian has written for newspapers and magazines around the world, ranging from the Australian to The Independent, from the New York Observer and the Village Voice to the Financial Times. He is the UN correspondent for Tribune, and senior analyst for Foreign Policy in Focus.
He has pundited on BBC, CNN, MSNBC, FOX, CBC and innumerable radio stations, for example appearing on Hard Ball,the O'Reilly Factor, and Wolf Blitzer. Online he writes for Salon, AlterNet and MaximsNews, among many others. He appears in Comment is Free on Guardian Unlimited.
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